August 4, 2014 Issue

James Wood, in his “Perfuming the Money Issue” (London Review of Books, October 11, 2012), says, “I have always thought Gilbert Osmond the most frightening character in fiction.” In my opinion, the most frightening (and evil) characters in real life are hanging judges – rude, biased tyrants who are allergic to reasonable doubt, run their courtrooms like police states, bully defense lawyers, and mock their submissions on behalf of the accused. One such scourge is Judge Robert Hanophy (“Hang ’em Hanophy”) in Janet Malcolm’s memorable "Iphigenia in Forest Hills" (The New Yorker, May 3, 2010). Another is Judge Michael Bolan in Nicholas Schmidle’s excellent "Crime Fiction," in this week’s issue. Here’s Schmidle’s account of what happened at trial when Tyrone Hood’s lawyer, Jim Mullenix, tried to raise the single most important issue in Hood’s case:

When Mullenix asked Morgan, Sr., about the life-insurance policy – “How much money did you collect from your son’s death?” – Higgins and Rogers, the state’s attorneys, objected. At one point, Judge Bolan told Mullenix, “Perry Mason does this. Perry Mason proves the guy in the back of the court did it.” He criticized Mullenix for failing to establish a “relevant nexus between the Hood case and Morgan, Sr.’s past. Any similarity between the deaths of Morgan, Jr., and Soto were mere “coincidence.” He ridiculed Mullenix’s argument as one more appropriate for the TV show “Unsolved Mysteries.”

Our justice system depends on fair-minded judges who constantly apply the fundamental principle of reasonable doubt. Judges like Hanophy and Bolan anger me. I'm sure that if I appeared in front of them, I'd be found in contempt. And that would be appropriate, because it's exactly what I feel for them - utter contempt. 

One way to diminish the impact of hanging judges is to elect trial by judge and jury. Juries can sometimes counterbalance the roughshod rulings of biased judges. I think Tyrone Hood made a serious mistake when he “waived his right to a jury trial, placing his fate in Judge Bolan's hands.”

Postscript: I see that Richard Brody is still polishing his brilliant “Critic’s Notebook” review of Woody Allen’s great Annie Hall (The New Yorker, June 25, 2012). In this week’s “Goings On About Town,” he changes “a psychoanalytic obsession in baring his sexual desires …” to “a psychoanalytic obsession with baring his sexual desires….” More significantly, he adds a new last line: “Yet it’s a mark of Allen’s artistic intuition and confessional probity that he lets Diane Keaton’s epoch-defining performance run away with the movie and allows her character to run away from him.”

Brody gives Allen more credit for knowing what he’s doing than Pauline Kael did. He says that Allen “allows” Annie to run away from him. Kael said that Allen “is bewildered that Annie wearied of Alvy’s obsessions and preferred to move on and maybe have some fun” (“The Prince Who Turned Into A Frog,” The New Yorker, October 27, 1980). I think Brody is right. Annie goes her own way because Woody Allen, her creator, intended her to go her own way. Given the seriousness of Allen’s talent, his art has always to be respected as intentional. 

June 25, 2012 Issue

What a pleasure to read this issue! From Hannah Goldfield’s delectable “Tables For Two” (“But the Pok Pok Affogato – tiny scoops of rich, creamy condensed-milk ice cream floating in black Vietnamese coffee, served with the type of crispy Chinese crullers usually eaten with congee for breakfast – is nothing short of heavenly”) to Richard Brody’s "Critic’s Notebook" celebration of one of my favorite films, Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (“a signal work of first-person cinematic modernism”) to Tad Friend’s richly detailed profile of Ben Stiller (“Onscreen, Stiller’s face is an unmade bed of comic distress, but his daily aspect, in a black Ralph Lauren T-shirt, black Simon Miller jeans, and black Nikes, is ascetic and pensive”) to four immensely stimulating, satisfying critical pieces (James Wood’s “True Lives,” Jill Lepore’s “Obama, The Prequel,” Sasha Frere-Jones’s “Revelation Road,” and Peter Schjeldahl’s “Young and Gifted”) - the whole gorgeous assemblage is blazingly extraordinary!

"Midnight in Paris": Goldberger's Gripe

Paul Goldberger, in “What’s Missing from Woody Allen’s Paris” (posted on newyorker.com’s “News Desk” blog, June 24, 2011), says that Allen’s vision of Paris, as presented in Midnight in Paris, is “flat and one-dimensional.” He says Allen’s Paris “isn’t a city, it’s a stage set,” that it’s “all beautiful surface,” and that “There’s no edge to it whatsoever.” Goldberger isn’t the first critic to complain about Allen’s postcard city views. Penelope Gilliatt, in her review of Allen’s Manhattan (“The Black-and-White Apple,” The New Yorker, April 30, 1979; included in Gilliatt’s 1980 collection Three-Quarter Face), wrote:

In the most wry way, to anyone who knows the Manhattan of potholes and poverty and rudeness, the picture is a fable – written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman – about a city of smooth rides and riches and thoughtfulness. The picture gives us a view of New York as from a chauffeur-driven car. Harlem is invisible, as though covered by a carpet from Sotheby Parke Benet.

Pauline Kael, in her evisceration of Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (“Couples,” The New Yorker, February 24, 1986; included in Kael’s 1989 collection Hooked), says:

The willed sterility of his style is terrifying to think about, though; the picture is all tasteful touches. He uses style to blot out the rest of New York City. It’s a form of repression, and from the look of Hannah and Her Sisters, repression is what’s romantic to him. That’s what the press is applauding – the romance of gentrification.

But if you’re writing “a love letter to the city,” which is David Denby’s description of Midnight in Paris (see his excellent review, “The Better Life,” The New Yorker, May 23, 2011), do you include potholes? Do you include high-rises? Do you include “the warts and all,” that Goldberger says makes Paris so much more interesting than “the Paris of Woody Allen’s mind”? Well, you could include these things, I suppose, if they’re part of what you love about the city. That’s what’s great about Paris – it represents a very large number of choices. Not all Allen’s choices are my choices. I prefer peeling walls, elaborate ironwork, impenetrable graffiti – a pungent, textured Paris, in other words. Allen is, as Denby points out, partial to “creamy-walled hotel rooms, restaurants with tall mirrors, gilt molding, and flower-laden tables.” I found Midnight in Paris lacking in the sort of back alley details that I relish. But you know what? Any lacks that Midnight in Paris may have are more than compensated for by the magnificent final scene on the Pont Alexandre III, where Gil unexpectedly meets Gabrielle. What a beautiful bridge! What a beautiful woman! I love that bridge! I love that woman! At that moment, staring up at the screen, I felt the power of Allen’s romanticism concentrating back on me. I left the theatre elated.